From July 25, 2026, to February 28, 2027, the Church of San Lorenzo in Aosta will host the exhibition *Rosalie D’Hérin Seris (1871–1956)*. This exhibition, dedicated to the first female photographer in the Aosta Valley, highlights a little-known figure in the history of regional photography. The exhibition, which opened on July 24 at 6:00 p.m., is sponsored by the Department of Education, Culture, and Identity Policies of the Autonomous Region of Valle d’Aosta, curated by Daria Jorioz, and organized by the Department of Cultural Activities, Exhibitions, and Identity Policies as part of efforts to promote the archives of the Bureau Régional d’Ethnologie et Linguistique.
The exhibition traces the personal and professional journey of Marie Rosalie D’Hérin Seris, born in 1871 in the village of Montjovet into a farming family and considered the first woman to have practiced photography professionally in the Aosta Valley. She first became involved in photography in her early twenties, when she met a traveling photographer from Piedmont who specialized in portraiture. After apprenticing with him to learn how to use a camera, she spent several months in Turin perfecting her photography and printing techniques before returning to the Aosta Valley to focus on portraits, both in the studio and outdoors.
The photographer’s work focused on the local residents and visitors to the Fons Salutis in Saint-Vincent, a spa resort frequented by the bourgeoisie of the time, who commissioned individual and group portraits. Through this work, Seris documented Aosta Valley society in the 1920s, leaving a photographic record now preserved in the Seris Collection.
The exhibition features twenty-nine large-format reproductions, selected by the curator from among the approximately seven hundred original photographic prints in the collection, consisting of black-and-white gelatin-bromide negatives on glass plates. The prints were produced by Enrico Peyrot according to philological criteria: some using the silver salt process, others using digital technology.
Accompanying the exhibition is a bilingual Italian-French catalog, edited by Daria Jorioz, illustrated with over fifty images, and published by Tipografia Valdostana. The exhibition is open to the public free of charge from Tuesday through Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.
“The exhibition dedicated to the photographer from Saint-Vincent,” says Councilor Erik Lavevaz, “highlights the collective value of the Aosta Valley’s photographic and multimedia archives. Their heritage, combined with the invaluable dedication of the women and men who work there, is a fundamental part of our historical consciousness: these are places that preserve the memory of our community, where people can find ways to identify with their history while also understanding the evolution of our community.”
“Rosalie D’Hérin Seris, whose first recorded mention as a photographer appears in a document from 1899,” notes curator Daria Jorioz, “can be considered a pioneering figure not only in the Aosta Valley but also in Italy as a whole. Her preference for natural light that caresses the faces, her choice of unconventional poses and settings, the slightly low-angle perspective adopted for individual portraits, and the inclusion of plants and architectural details in the frame make her images instantly recognizable and her style personal and never predictable.”.
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| An exhibition in Aosta on Rosalie D’Hérin Seris, the first professional female photographer in the Aosta Valley |
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